Bounty

Chapter 13
Open air bargaining
Japan was in no way a small place, thus proving to be as good a place as any to lose one self in the vast sea of humanity that were its city streets. You would think that a five foot ten, caramel brown skinned, west Brooklyn native would stand out in this city full of Asians but in actuality she fit right in, as long as she didn’t stand straight up that is.
Though her preciseness of her steps and steadfastness of her gaze alluded that she knew where she was going, in all truth she was just wandering around the streets of Tokyo, Japan. In this metropolis a person like her could do so for days on end. That was exactly what Alex was doing. It had been yesterday night when she’d set booted foot on to Japanese soil after stowing away on that cargo ship that was headed there from Baja, California. It had been a long four days on that boat, stowed away in the holding dock near the bottom, hiding with the cargo for that trip which happened to be fresh bass from the fishermen in the lower Pacific. When she snuck off when they docked for supplies here in Japan she was sure she would smell like fish for the rest of her life, but after soaking the leather duster for nearly a day, scrubbing the black cargos until they were nearly paper thin, and simply burning the black tank top she was free of the stench. The hot shower in that hotel room she snuck into the previous night helped with the body odor. Now here she was again, wandering the dark alleyways like a street urchin.
And then, as if life couldn’t suck anymore than it already did…
Alex winced when the first little drop hit her on top of the head. She glanced up and full on cursed out loud, in Japanese so the natives would know how pissed she was, when the skies opened up like a store brand zip lock bag with out the freshness seal. She sighed and continued stomping along, headed nowhere, but going everywhere.
“Lexa?” the questioning male voice stopped her in her tracks where she stood in front of a small noodle shop somewhere on the Upper East Side. The fact that the voice held no hint of an accent and spoke her name in perfect English held her there longer. “Lexa? Lexa is that you?”
She was sure she recognized the voice before she turned but she still turned anyway, just to spite her self. The man stood in the rain, under a large black and purple umbrella in a pair of nice fitting jeans, black and white Chuck Taylor’s and a black shirt. This being the classic Americanized Japanese man. “ David?” Alex squinted to see through the heavy pelting rain. She couldn’t hold back the smile when she realized that it was him. “David.”
David was your classic Punk rocker over in America but over here he was just a businessman’s son with a bad work ethic, Alex’s taste if there ever was one. They’d met previously back in New York about a year ago for a short while, had their little “summer fling” and left it at that, but now that he was here and so was she, both could tell that tonight would be something to remember.
The man strolled over to Alex with that smile on his face. He’d grown facial hair since the last time she’d saw him and let his hair grow longer as well. It was a good look on him.
“It’s been a while.” Alex said trying her best to look like the sexy seductress she was and not the wounded wet puppy she resembled at the moment.
“Way to long.” David answered. His soft yet subtly suggestive way of speaking brought back memories that Alex wouldn’t mind reliving. He eyed her and she actually blushed, she wasn’t exactly the leather pant wearing nineteen-year-old rebel he’s left last year. “You look…different.”
She smirked, “I’m wet and my clothes aren’t sticking to me in ways I wish they would.” Alex stepped under the large umbrella to stand in front of him looking at the five foot eleven man with those sultry brown eyes that they both knew he couldn’t resist.
“Anything I can do about that?” he asked meeting her gaze and never breaking it.
“Got a shower?”
The smirk he returned told Alex all she needed to know.

James sat back in his large leather chair, running his hand over his head full of thick wavy hair. His hand lingered at the barcode on his neck for longer than first intended, his finger tips brushing over the grooves in each bar and over the number displayed on the top and bottom of the code. He sighed again for what must have been at least the hundredth time tonight. That barcode had put him through a lot over the years, but he guessed it a trade since he had put that barcode through a lot as well. When he was younger, a boy of just fifteen he’d grabbed a knife and went at the back of his neck, hoping to just scrape the code off. He soon figured out that the code was much more than skin deep and when he woke up from the self induced coma he was in, brought on by the massive loss of blood; the indecent thing had only grown back, this time darker and thicker, as if willing him to try it again to see what would happen. So now he grew his hair out to cover it and when certain people did get a glance at it he would just tell them that it was a drunken night in Columbia, South America that ended up with him passed out and with a little more than a headache to show for the previous night. People believed it, mostly, but when they didn’t he would have to punch their lights out, pour some liquor on them, turn his collar up and call it a draw.
It was true, the life of a “Super Hunter”, also affectionately called “freaks” by the lab coats that did this to them, was a hard one. But James was a glass half full kind of guy. He knew he was one of the lucky ones. He knew about the others. The ones that didn’t come out looking as human as he and the other Hunters he knew did. Some of them came out looking a bit more like daddy dearest than expected. These, of course did not sell as well with the high-end buyers. Being dubbed “the ugly ducklings” they were kept as lab rats for the further growth of the experiment. Some simply died, unable to combat the treatment that was being placed on them, the others they thrived. These Hunters were made coarse and bitter, hardened by their life of ill-treatment and torture. Those they called the “Reapers” because they were born and bred to do nothing but seek out and destroy the few Hunters who made it out onto land. The problem was the Hunters blend in with the humans. This was not a problem for the Reapers but instead one for the humans.
This thought again brought a heavy sigh up from James chest.
What if they get to her? Will she survive? Those thoughts were like daggers and he hated to think like that but in a time like this how else was he to think?
The door to the room opened lightly and a head full of brown hair peaked in. “Hey, Jay. Can I come in?”
“Sure Rae, c’mon in.” James took his hand from his neck and placed it on the armrest beside him. “Any news on her where abouts?” he said it with a twinge of hope that he knew he shouldn’t have, but he did and he knew why. What was it about that girl that was making him like this? He didn’t know but he was determined to seek her out so he could find out.
“No. Sorry.” She answered softly. “But Cyn’s workin’ on it.”
James sighed and averted his gaze from the brunet to the floor then back to her while he spoke. “She would be a huge asset to this team Rae.” He said to her like he had read her mind. He knew she was asking herself why he was so set on this and if, maybe, it was for more than the team. It had been obvious from the first day that James had a thing for Alex. Rae knew that James wasn’t the type to let his feelings cloud his judgments, but then again she’d never seen him so uptight about any one person. She worried, and he knew.
Rae tried to play it off with sarcasm, a trait that seemed to be hereditary in the “Super hunters” gene pool. “And is that your subtle way of saying she could save all our hides?”
James shrugged his brows before moving his left hand up to rub his temples before stopping his fore, middle and thumb at the bridge of his nose. “In a word. Yes.”
His eyes met with hers and their color alone told James how serious what he was about to say was. “But first we’ve gotta save hers.”


David strolled out of the bathroom still tying the white towel around his waist into a stiff knot. “So tell me.” He began to the woman he followed out into the bedroom. “You still a raging bad ass, like I remembered you to be?”
Alexa shrugged bare shoulders, “Well I’m still in my prime. I got a lotta years left in me.” She straightened the towel that was tied not so tightly under both arms and around her body when a breeze wafted to untold regions. “What about y- y- wow.” She couldn’t help but stutter to a halt in her words when the sight of a half naked David met her eyes. His skin was lightly sun kissed and the muscles that he had built up with years of martial arts training were very chiseled and defined. She bit her lower lip as David smirked her way.
“You like?” he asked in his suave and teasing sort of way.
She only nodded twice, mumbling “Mhm.” for extra show.
His smirk grew into a twisted and sort of cocky smile, “Well c’mere and we’ll see what else I can do that you’ll like.”
She smirked then and began to move closer to him, adding some extra sway in her already oddly predatorily seductive walk. David could swear she looked just like a jungle cat stalking its prey. David was not ashamed to admit that he loved to be her prey.
Their lips met slowly at first, all the history between them coming to a head, or rather a mouth for this situation. Both sets of brown eyes remained closed while her fingers ran slowly up his defined arms, caressing each dip and plane of every muscle. Her hands kept going up the curvature of his not so broad but still strong shoulders, using them as leverage to pull him closer, and deepen the kiss. Up farther her hands went as she felt his arms wrap almost possessively around her waist. Her fingers traced the skin of his collarbone right as his tongue found sweet entrance into her mouth. She cocked her head to the side to give him better access and began to massage his tongue with hers exactly when her fingertips ran over something her mind wished she’d never registered.
Fuck.
A barcode.